"There is no outside-text." This quote by Derrida can also be rendered "There is only context, no reference". Anytime you reference something it's in relationship to something else. How does this apply to our practice? In the Sandokai we chant "If you do not see the way you do not see it even as you walk on it". Everything is a part of the way. It is your deluded nature that you imagine yourself off or alienated from the way. That's the basic content of delusion. That you're somehow off or outside the way, struggling to get in. Our practice is one that says you have to live life and practice from the inside. We reflexively do just the opposite. We imagine there's an outside reference of what an enlightened person is like - calm, focused, kind. And we compare ourselves to this list of imagined attributes and never match up. To imagine reference like that is to imagine we're off the way and need to get back on it.

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